Our final paddle in Switzerland took us to Lake Brienz that sits between Interlaken and Brienz. While we have great views of the mountains on Lake Thun, the colors of the water on Lake Brienz make this the most beautiful lake I’ve ever seen. The day before we left Switzerland, we headed to Interlaken and jumped on the ferry with our inflatable stand up paddleboards. It’s a pretty long lake, so the ferry ride was perfect to get half way and stop in Giessbach right next to the lake’s waterfall. We got off the ferry, pumped up our boards and paddled across to Brienz where we hopped on a train back to Interlaken. Oh, got to love the flexibility of the iSUPs. I think the photos speak for themselves, but of course nothing like seeing it in person! Check our video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNt9byU5D68

 

My birthday dinner from Nick..he's getting so much better at cooking!

 

My shopping bike for the summer in Thun

 

Gorgeous views all the time!

 

The nescafe (cup) cow

 

Lake Thun

 

The train ride is amazing from Interlaken to Luzern

Luzern is one of our favorite cities in Switzerland and part of it is because of the train ride to get there. From Interlaken you take the panorama train to Luzern past a dozen or so beautiful mountain lakes. Luzern is another great Swiss city on the lake with a picturesque wooden bridge that goes from one side of town across the river to the other. Thanks to our Eurail pass we were able to just hop on the train and enjoy luch and and an afternoon by the lake.

 

While it seemed like we would have plenty of time to visit Zermatt, we sort of left it until the last minute and had to take a chance with partly sunny skies and hope that we could get a glimpse of the Matterhorn. We arrived in a sunny Zermatt, a quaint mountain town that only has electric buses to take people to their hotels. Most people walk or ride a bike and it definitely makes it a much nice atmosphere to stroll along the streets. Plenty of outdoor shops, but even their 50% off sales couldn’t pull me in, suprising, but seriously even at ½ prices this stuff is way too expensive. We headed through town as we saw the clouds quickly coming in and when we got the first place where we could see the Matterhorn, only the base was visible. The surrounding sky was sunny except the hanging clouds mounting up around the Matterhorn. Despite not seeing it in all its beauty (we really shouldn’t have waited until the last moment), Zermatt a nice (expensive!) ski town with fantastic views.

 

Cloudy Matterhorn views

 

We spent many weekends around the Aare River this summer. The Aare runs from Thun through Bern and it’s super popular to go down the river when the weather is nice. A lot of people start in Thun and end in Bern taking about 3 hours to complete the journey. There are always plenty of people picnicking and bbq on the banks, enjoy the day on the river. It’s a class 1 river and has 1 rapid, but for the most part pretty tame and something that just about everyone can enjoy. We did this last year when we visited and met Neil and SUP Switzerland and it was a highlight of our trip in Switzerland. Neil runs a tubing and kayak business as well as the SUPs, and is quite popular with people renting to go down the river. This is something that we helped with to earn some $ during our holiday. We’d get the tubes ready, hand them out and then pick them out down the river in Bern. When we didn’t have to work we got to enjoy the river paddling down on our SUPs. 

 

Further down the river with some friends

 

Our friend Suzanne

 

Nick on the river